


Vignettes of the Blessed Realm - A Sudden Excess of Stars

by Anna_Wing



Series: Vignettes of the Blessed Realm [10]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:33:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Wing/pseuds/Anna_Wing
Summary: In which not all that was broken is mended at one go. Eöl wakes up in Aman, gets a briefing and feels not quite himself.
Series: Vignettes of the Blessed Realm [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/803763
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28





	Vignettes of the Blessed Realm - A Sudden Excess of Stars

He woke to a night of stars and knew at once that he was no longer in Middle-earth. For the stars that he had lost and longed for since the rising of the Moon blazed above him again; fair and fierce and shining, so close and bright that he might have been once more in the wild woods of the great east, with Finwe and his parents and all the folk of the Tatyar, following the Vanyar West to the haven that they had been promised. The home that he had never seen, nor in the end ever desired, until he met the distant reflection of its light on a Moon-dark evening, lost and straying in the trackless woods of Nan Elmoth…

But now he lay under the stars on earth that thrummed with power, and he knew that he was far, far from home. It was kindly power, actively benevolent, without the darkness that was the heart of Middle-earth; but foreign, foreign as the constellations. The Rider hung directly above him at the peak of the sky as he had never seen Him, carrying the Three Kings at His side - Ingwe, Finwe, Olwe. He was somewhere high and exposed, though the kindness in the earth kept away the fear of the open. The horizon swung dizzily around him when he tried to sit up, and he shut his eyes, though every instinct cried out against it ( _the stars! the stars!_ ).

"Steady!" someone said, in heavily-accented, Northern Sindarin, and a strong arm came around his shoulder, anchoring him to the earth. "Deep breaths, slowly. Keep your eyes closed until you get used to it."

That was sensible advice, and he obeyed it. Things calmed down; he kept his eyes shut. The arm removed itself and he managed to balance himself against the world without its support. The voice, it was a woman's, deep and sure, asked "Who are you?"

He had no reason not to answer; the fearless strength of this land was reassuring, to anyone who had lived in Dark-haunted Beleriand. "Eöl, son of Randis and Angael, spouse...," that was bitter but undeniable, "spouse of Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, father..." that was even worse, and still less could he refuse to say it, "... of Maeglin Lomion."

"Ah. Good. You know yourself, then. Sometimes people come back a little confused."

He opened his eyes. He was sitting up on cool grass; naked, but the air was gentle and he did not feel the lack of clothes. There was nothing nearby taller than a few bushes bearing white, sweet-scented flowers, and the above him the dome of the sky burned with light in every direction. His companion knelt nearby, politely apart but close enough to lean forward and steady him if necessary. Her clothes were simple and sturdy, clearly meant for serious work, her face handsome and strong; and in the starlight he could see that her short hair was a strange and uneasy shade of red-brown. 

"You are of the Noldor." The words came out matter-of-factly, without rancour. He remembered there being rancour, but no longer how it had felt ( _the stars! the stars!_ ).

"I am. Your father Angael's mother Gaelin is the sister of my father. I am Istarnië Nerdanel, daughter of Ngólanis and Mahtan, spouse of Fëanor, as he is named in this tongue, mother of our seven sons. Welcome to Valinor, cousin Eol."

The impulse to leap to his feet and start shouting came and went with eye-blink speed. Eöl stayed on the ground. 

“I know this,” he said blankly instead. “How do I know this?”

Then, “Why am I not angry?” He knew who he was, he thought. His memory felt…complete; given how horrible so much of it was, especially the last years, there seemed no reason for anything to have been left out. He should have been…angry. Or afraid. Or upset. Or…something. He was not.

The woman (Nerdanel, his _cousin_ Nerdanel, he had _kin_ here) had either not noticed the mental spasm, or was ignoring it. She said politely, “I don’t know for sure, but they probably told you in the Halls.”

He tried to remember the Halls. Nothing. His last memory was Gondolin, but it was both specific and distant. He could remember the weight of the fetters around his wrists, the breeze sharp and cool against his face, the itch of unwashed hair against his scalp, the uneven stones under his feet. The wide, green plain of Tumladen and the grey mountain walls and the clear, pale sky of earliest dawn (at least they had not killed him under the hated Sun). He had not looked down as he fell.

Whatever had happened between that moment and this one, he did not remember any of it. His distress must have shown in his face or thought; he could not tell Nerdanel’s thoughts at all, beyond the surface of friendliness and concern for him. He realised suddenly that the shields of his own mind were gone, and disconcertingly, he did not fear their loss.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently. “I am told that disorientation and unusual…openness are normal among the Returned. It will wear off. Very few people remember the Halls after they have left them. Oh!” She dug hurriedly in the satchel at her side, and produced an assortment of packets and a flask. “So sorry, the staff told me to give you this first thing, before talking. Your body is new and needs energy.”

A few minutes later Eöl found himself clutching a substantial pasty, still warm and half unwrapped from several large leaves of unfamiliar species. His other hand was occupied by a ceramic mug of some hot, faintly aromatic liquid roughly the same colour as Nerdanel’s hair. 

“There you go,” she said. “It’s a recipe from Dorthonion, so hopefully it will taste all right to you. Eat up, and then you can get some clothes, and meet the staff and all the rest of it.”

The pasty was savoury and comforting, some sort of lightly herbed meat and vegetable mixture in a crisp pastry case; he remembered Aredhel complaining, lightly at first, and then in truth, about the blandness of Beleriandish food. The tea was unfamiliar (“it’s local, they grow it here on the lower slopes”) and slightly bitter, but quenched his thirst satisfactorily. While he ate, slowly and carefully, with many pauses (“small bites, you have to get used to being back in your body”), Nerdanel talked, sipping occasionally from a mug of her own. It was a brisk, practiced speech that conveyed information concisely and quickly; obviously the people here were used to dealing with disoriented Ennorim. He found himself appreciating the efficiency of the process, and reassured that he was not going to simply be abandoned to this new life without help or information.

He was in Valinor sure enough, specifically the Gardens of Lorien, the place of health and healing where the dead became the living once more. This was the Third Age of Middle-earth. The world was significantly different. He would get a thorough explanation of just how different later, and a detailed account of events since his death, if he wanted one. He would also get a full account of the polities and peoples of the Blessed Realm, to give him some idea of where he might want to go and what he might want to do once he left the Gardens of Lorien. He had been released from the Halls of Waiting because the Judge of the Dead had decided that he was ready, and because he had been willing to leave (apparently there were people who weren’t; he remembered who her children were, and swallowed his questions with the pasty). No one knew what His criteria were, except that the Returned had to be both willing and able to live in peace with those they had wronged or been wronged by. Or at least be willing to avoid them.

Ah.

Eöl finished the last, tasty crumb of his pasty and washed it down with a gulp of tea. Nerdanel produced her flask and refilled his mug and her own. The tea was still hot. He eyed the flask thoughtfully; it looked as if it were made of some sort of light-coloured metal, but was otherwise ordinary, with no discernible enchantments on it. Obviously, the Arts of the Elves had progressed considerably since his death.

“We do catch-up seminars,” Nerdanel said with more animation, noticing his interest. “The basics here in the Gardens, and more advanced material in Tirion or Valmar or the other cities, depending on the subject. And we like to ask the Returned to share their knowledge as well, when they feel up to it.” 

Eöl gestured at the flask with hand that still held the leaf wrappings. “What could I tell you that you do not already know?” There was a faint flavour of bitterness in his mind. Was he to be as a child again, ignorant and stumbling among these _Lachenn_ with their Valar-given Arts?

Nerdanel held out her hand and he dropped the leaves into her palm without thinking; she crushed them into a rough ball and tossed them under the nearest bush.

“You would be surprised,” she said rather dryly. He had a sudden sense that this was more truly Nerdanel than the careful, gentle guide of the last… he looked at the sky. Judging from the movement of the stars it had been at least two hours. It was noticeably cooler, but still well within his range of comfort. The air was kind here, too. It carried the hum of night insects, and the soft susurrus of leaves stirring gently in the breeze; somewhere off in the black and silver distance, a nightingale sang.

“It’s the dark of the Moon,” Nerdanel said. “They wanted to let you wake at a … happy time for you.”

And it was. Underneath everything, the confusion, the nervousness, the disturbing lack of feelings that he _should_ be feeling if he had remembered himself correctly, and yet was not… under everything thrummed a joy deeper than the shadows of Nan Elmoth, more piercing than that accursed and fateful javelin, brighter than the forge that had made his weapons and armour and the instruments of his Art (the stars, the _stars_ ). Starlight shimmered in the night air before his wondering eyes, laughed on his skin left bare to its power, sang, sang, sang to his heart.

In a daze of joy, he let Nerdanel take his hand and pull him to his feet with friendly effortlessness. 

“Come on, cousin,” she said, “Let’s get you some clothes, and then we can talk properly.”

Only the strength of her arm stopped him from falling flat on his face with his first step. Getting back on good terms with his body was clearly going to take some work. 

It didn’t affect the joy (the _stars_ ).


End file.
